I’ll Take Your Dead – Toronto After Dark 2018

A man makes it his job to make bodies disappear in I’ll Take Your Dead. William (Aidan Devine) is a man known in criminal circles as “The Candy Butcher,” who is able to make dead bodies disappear upon request. Living alone with his daughter Gloria (Ava Preston), who is able to see ghosts of the victims, William tries to make her life a good one. William’s planned retirement to El Paso is jeopardized when a lowlife criminal named Reggie (Ari Millen) drops off three bodies and one of them, a woman named Jackie (Jess Salgueiro), turns out to still be alive.

I’ll Take Your Dead is the latest film from director Chad Archibald (Bite, The Heretics) and Black Fawn Films. Probably the best description of this genre-crossing film is that I’ll Take Your Dead is a father/daughter drama that just happens to also be both a crime thriller and supernatural horror film. The relationship between William and Gloria are at the core of this story, with narration by Gloria describing her father as a “good man, who does bad things.”

Undoubtedly, the standout star of I’ll Take Your Dead is child actress Ava Preston as Gloria, who simultaneously plays her role with vulnerability and maturity beyond her years. She shares a great chemistry with Aidan Devine (Wolf Cop) as her father William, who was all but forced into his career of body disposal. My only real criticisms of I’ll Take Your Dead is that the film doesn’t really have the right balance of the multiple genres it tackles and could have used more horror. Also, Ari Millen’s antagonistic performance as Reggie is more obnoxious than threatening. However, I’ll Take Your Dead is still a film worth seeing for  the father/daughter chemistry.